On 20/7/09 15:17, in article
b3cb7424-7a60-4ebe-bd92-bf78da02d0c6...oglegroups.com, "Furry
Fred" <furrysnews@googlemail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 5, 2:31*pm, RCC <richard@mapson_cowling1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> I bought the Voda dongle - it works fine. *There is a requirement to use
>> it periodically (I think once every 120 days). *My main requirement is
>> to collect e-mails and do very basic web searches, look at train times,
>> stuff like that, on the few days I am away from home. *E-mail collection
>> is very cheap - the balance goes down by about 10p every time I use it.
>> I still have over £14 left so GOK how Vodafone will make much money out
>> of me. *I guess if my home office broadband goes down I will use it as a
>> backup, again mainly for e-mail so might spend a bit then.
>>
>> I collect from a number of POP 3 addresses using Thunderbird,and an
>> associate company's Outlook web mail system. *It connects via 3G when it
>> can and GPRS when it can't. *Speed has not been an issue - but I am not
>> trying to download large files apart from the odd excel spreadsheet, and
>> am quite happy to sip my coffee whilst it gets on with things.
>>
>> They are so cheap now - less than half a tank of petrol - and if I
>> travelled *a lot I would be tempted to have 2 or 3 from different
>> networks and use whichever is best on the day. *With some hotels
>> charging £15 a night for wireless access in London, it's a no brainer.
>> Beats having to eat in Macdonalds for their free wifi too.
>>
>> It has a Micro SD card slot, so can use it as a memory stick as well.
>> One less thing to carry.
>>
>> I am a very happy customer.
>>
>> In message <78s5amF1n0lo...@mid.individual.net>, Roger Mills
>> <watt.ty...@googlemail.com> writes
>>
>>
>>
>>> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
>>> Jim Kewley <JKew...@noanswer.com> *wrote:
>>
>>>> Dunno how many here are internet nerds, like me. *In my attempts to
>>>> maintain a web connection on our travels with the van, I bought a 3
>>>> mobile PAYG dongle internet connection thingy. *Big mistake.
>>
>>>> 3 mobile appears to offer the cheapest way of getting on the web
>>>> whilst travelling, consequently I bought one of their dongles. Sadly
>>>> 3 mobile merely serves to emphasise the truth of ' you get what you
>>>> pay for '. Despite the apparent value in it's bandwidth offering the
>>>> truth is most of the time the connection is so slow and unreliable,
>>>> with frequent dropped lines, that anybody would be hard pressed to
>>>> take advantage of the bandwidth available.
>>
>>>> Finally, after my umpteenth dropped/slow connection, I gave up with 3
>>>> and decided to try an O2 version of a similar PAYG dongle set up. *O2
>>>> is slightly more expensive than 3 but so far I've found it's
>>>> connections to be consistently far better and so much more reliable
>>>> than 3 mobile.
>>>> Sent from the Caravan Club, Wirral Country Park site, via my O2 PAYG
>>>> connection. *O2 is retaining a steady 3G connection at 3.6 gigs,
>>>> checking the 3 mobile dongle it seems to be struggling to find a GPRS
>>>> connection at 56 mbs.
>>
>>>> HTH for anybody interested.
>>
>>> I too bought a '3' dongle, and have been very disappointed with its
>>> performance. I don't think I've *ever* achieved download speeds in excess of
>>> 1Mbps, and it's often not much better than dial-up speeds. In a recent
>>> caravan trip to the New Forest I couldn't make the bl**dy thing work at at,
>>> despite having had some sort of connection on the same site a few weeks
>>> earlier - and despite hoisting the dongle high up outside the caravan on the
>>> end of a USB extension lead.
>>
>>> The version I bought came bundled with 12G of usage - which expires after 12
>>> months - and further top ups cost £10 for 1G or 1 month - whichever occurs
>>> first. [There's no way I'm going to use 12G in 12 months because my use is
>>> only occasional, when away from home - but it was a reasonably good deal at
>>> the time].
>>
>>> One of the problems with the '3' setup (apart from it not working!) is that
>>> it's time limited. So, for example, if you want to use it on a short caravan
>>> trip, you have to buy a month's worth, and if you go on another trip (say) 6
>>> weeks later, you have to buy another month's worth even if you've only used
>>> a fraction of the previous month's bandwidth.
>>
>>> I see that Vodaphone are now offering a PAYG BB dongle for £39 - including a
>>> bundled 1G of usage. AIUI - unlike the equivalent '3' offereng - this
>>> doesn't time out, so you don't have to top it up until you actually run out
>>> of bandwidth. Top-ups appear to cost £15 per 1G (as opposed to 3's £10) but,
>>> if they don't expire after one month, may represent better value for
>>> occasional users.
>>
>>> When my year's worth of '3' expires, I shall be very tempted to ditch '3'
>>> and try Vodaphone instead - particularly if user reports in the meantime are
>>> favourable.
>>
>>> Anyone got any experience of Vodaphone mobile broadband?
>>
>>> [I'm cross-posting this to uk.telecom.broadband and uk.telecom.mobile
>>> because I think it's of wider interest than just the caravanning fraternity]
>>

You need to bear in mind where you are going to use it most. Vodafone is
very poor in the Borders in Scotland which is why I had to go for the 3
dongle which works fine.

>> --
>> Richard C
>
> I used the Camping and Caravanning Club's WiFi system when away
> recently.
>
> Expensive - £25 for a week but varied very much from site to site.
>
> CCC Dartford - reasonable speed, CCC Veryan (in the same week) total
> KRAP!
>
> CCC Verwood - worked long enough to take my money and then packed up
> and then I used up the balance at CCC Blackmore - perfect!
>
> You just can't win!